In the spring of 2016, I was hired by the Weinstein Company to tackle what was essentially a rewrite for a Chinese language animated film. Originally produced by Alibaba Pictures and released in China the previous year, Weinstein purchased the film’s remaining distribution rights, and then set out to re-release the movie in English-speaking regions.

Here is the original poster for the Chinese version of the film.

I’ve done a few of these no-credit rewrites/passes, which basically means that, even though my work on a project can sometimes be quite extensive, my contract stipulates that I won’t receive a writing credit on the project. In lieu of said credit, I get a nice check. It’s a fair deal.

Of course, not all rewrites require heavy lifting, but this project in particular was absolutely insane. Allow me to explain….

Originally released as Little Door Gods, this two-hour animated movie had already been produced and distributed throughout China when I was approached to tackle the English version rewrite. But just because the movie had already been made didn’t mean it had a viable working script. Not only was the script I received not properly formatted for screenplays, but most of its dialogue was little more than poorly translated English that had been used for the film’s subtitles.

Once I got the job, a handful of goals were presented to me. First, they wanted the new dialogue to be funny and relevant to an English-speaking audience. Next, they weren’t reanimating or re-editing the film, which meant that what was on the screen visually couldn’t be changed. (Although, in the end, they did cut entire scenes out of the original version to shave down the film’s runtime.) They also hoped to strip out as much of the story’s Chinese spirituality/mythology as possible. (Keep in mind this is a story about two Chinese brothers… who also happen to be gods, hence the title.) And finally, since they weren’t reanimating any of the scenes, they hoped the new English dialogue would match the characters’ Chinese-speaking lips.

The deadline for the entire project was two weeks.

In those two weeks, I wrote an entirely new script from scratch, as the script I had received and was supposed to use as a skeleton proved to be mostly useless. Over fourteen days, I watched the Chinese version of the film over and over again, all while writing an updated English version of the script. Scenes with little or no dialogue were great, as I could write whatever dialogue I wanted (so long as a character’s mouth was off-screen or turned away from the camera). However, each time a character visibly opened their mouth onscreen, I would have to write (and many times rewrite and rewrite and rewrite) a new line of dialogue that was appropriate, funny, and fit into the character’s already animated mouth. During this process, I bet I listened to each individual line of dialogue more than a dozen times as I attempted to get each one just right.

In the end, miraculously, I got it done on time. Honestly, I don’t know how that happened, but it did. I cashed my check and moved on to the next project, not thinking too much about it until just recently when a quick Google search for the working English title—The Guardian Brothers—pulled up this result.

The Guardian Brothers was released on Netflix in early September. I had no idea.

I have to admit, in light of recent events involving Harvey Weinstein (and almost every other man in Hollywood, apparently), I held off on sharing this bit of news. And, at least to date, I have yet to watch the film. But regardless of how it turned out (or what’s currently happening in the news), it was still an awesome opportunity that—while admittedly exhausting and grueling—I am incredibly appreciative of having been given.

Not sure when I’ll get around to watching it, but if you’re interested and get the chance please let me know what you thought. I hope you enjoy it. And if not, eh… you won’t find my name anywhere on it, so what do I care?